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Don't really see the problem people are having with DeSmuME. Runs at perfect speed on my system, no crashes ect.

I've used no$gba for a little over 2 years and from my experience I'll say that no$gba is good if you have a slow computer. (My old computer was terrible but no$gba ran fine, DeSmuMe just lagged like crazy)

After getting my new system I tested out DeSmuME and it worked perfectly. (Almost same speed as in a DS game, didn't have the same glitches that I got on some ROMs that I did with No$GBA)

So for me
DeSmume wins
Pros:
No glitches/bugs with roms
Wi-fi support
Doesn't lag (No$Gba lagged hard on some lucky star game I was trying to play )

As far as i can tell from quite a few of the cpmments is that game speed is very important. Personally, I've never had any issues with x1.0 speed for either of them and I use my study laptop for emulation, but for anything higher than normal speed I've always found No$GBA to be easier to configure. That said, it may have a lot to do with the fact that I've never use 0.9.6 Desume or whatever the latest one is, but I'm fairly certain that the dev team said they sacrificed speed for compatability (not sure, could use confirmation). But mainly the reason I use No$GBA is because its been the same for ages and I'm afraid of all the new things in life
tl;dr No$GBA coz I like my rut.

After careful consideration I decided to write an entire review of both aforementioned emulators, as well as rate them with a number (including decimals) between 0 and 5.

~~~Desmume 0.9.7:~~~

The lastest version runs all of the DS generation 4 & 5 Pokemon games on my laptop with no issues whatsoever. This is not their stable release yet, but it is still much better than it used to be. With my system specs (at the end of this post) it runs the game at a minimal speed of 97% unless I open at least 3 desmume windows at once, at which point it begins to slow down quite a bit.

Pros:
~Runs all of the Pokemon games on the DS with no glitches (unless caused by a missing file or an error), and even bypasses the anti-piracy measures on some without a patch or fix to the roms (In the cases of Heart Gold, Soul Silver and Platinum)
~Runs every final fantasy game for the DS without glitches, no questions asked.
~Fully emulates or at least runs every game made for the DS thus far.
~This emulator has save states, meaning, that you can save at any time during game play.
~Has a clean and crisp graphical appearance for an emulator that even can compare to the real system in many cases.
~The sound system is good enough that you could not tell the difference between this and an actual Nintendo DSi even with Acoustic Noise Cancelling Over-ear headphones from Bose (I tested this myself by plugging my Bose headphones into my DSi and listening, and then plugging into my computer. There is no obvious difference, and even if there are, they are too slight and the best of headphones won't even reveal them.)
~The cheat interface is intelligent enough to tell the difference between a RAW format Action Replay code and a normal one, unlike No$Gba which requires you to check a box to tell it whether or not the code is in RAW format.

Cons:
~Will not run at normal speeds on slower machines. Period. (unless you somehow modify it and/or use external memory, such as a flash drive) The only reason I can run games so well on it is because I spent over 1200 dollars on a new laptop for college (and of course gaming) see my specs in the last section.
~No wifi support as of yet...

Conclusion: This is a very good emulator, and even though it seems less stable at first, if you can run it at normal speeds you will find it to be very stable and reliable, as well as clean in appearances and musical capability.

My Rating: 4.7 out of 5.0 points

Explanation for my rating:
All of the pros are certainly and indisputably good, and although the only real con is that it lacks wifi support, that is what deducted 0.3 points from the rating. Some games for the DS are so reliant on wifi, that some require you to use it just to beat the games. This can be a hassle, but it's not worth throwing this emulator out for, because No$Gba doesn't support wifi either, and since their team is pretty inactive, i doubt they will ever complete it. On the other hand, Desmume's team has still been making somewhat-frequent releases and the staff members have been around occasionally in their forums recently, and judging by their history as a steadily-working team, I believe that they'll eventually solve this problem. When that happens, I'll give them another review.

~~~No$Gba 0.2.6a:~~~

Pros:
~You can adjust the emulation speed.
~You can rotate the screens. (It really helps a lot, with a game that would normally be more annoying than anything else - Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword)
~You can use cheat engine to mess around and make cheat codes in just about every game because the emulator makes most of the values that can be turned into cheat codes into lines of hexadecimal code, after being translated from the game's native programming language, in order to emulate games and give the emulator the ability to use cheat codes.

Cons:
~Just about every game that has anti-piracy measures will not work on this emulator unless you patch or fix the rom itself. (after all, the anti-piracy measures were made specifically to at LEAST stop no$gba from freely running DS games. Nintendo isn't that stupid, guys.)
~Some games have very limited functionality because of playability issues with this emulator's touch screen, which is due to the inability to resize the given window however you want to. So in other words playing The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass on the no$gba... is a royal pain in the butt.
~3D Graphical support is very primitive even in terms of an emulator, causing a lot of games to be choppy, sloppy or even nearly unplayable.
~The sound capabilities of this emulator are very primitive, and no matter what game you play it will never sound nearly as good as on the real thing, or even as on a decent released version of Desmume.
~It requires you to find your own NDS Bios files and plugins, which are not readily included with the emulator. Note that Desmume does not include them either, but they found a way to bypass the need for these files, which makes me wonder if the No$Gba team is even skilled enough to do a bit of hex-editing when they can't even fix something the Desmume team so easily did...

Conclusion:
Being the first fully-functional DS emulator, it has quite a long history. But as with real life history, all things come to pass their time of greatness. This emulator is simply past its time, and other emulators with teams that are still active are taking the lead roles. Nonetheless, it still runs most games, and the anti-piracy issues with certain ones are not that difficult to fix or compensate for. But it's a sinking ship with many holes in its bough and it won't be long before most of the new upcoming games won't be playable on it, because of compatibility issues still present and the fact that Nintendo is growing smarter as a company.

My Rating: 1.3 out of 5.0 points

Explanation for my rating:
It is true that No$Gba has many variations as a program for improved functionality and compatibility, and it is also true that the emulation speed can be tampered with, which are the best features of this emulator, but these are the only two reasons that it sustained a rating above 0 points. There are simply too many difficulties, annoyances, compatibility issues, and complicated programming faults that create hindrances for this emulator. If anyone still thinks this is not a sinking ship I am sure that the inactive team that was supposed to be running this project would not mind if you made improvements to their latest version, which was released nearly a year ago, if I'm not mistaken (or longer than that if I'm wrong). If anyone could save this sinking ship, someone already would have, correct?

Wrong. That is because even if you save the ship (the emulator) all of the passengers (in this case, the people that run the project, their fans, and any form or law enforcement authority) will be enraged by the release and will do everything in their power to steal from you, discredit you, or plain and simply make you pay for building up using what they started with. In other words, it doesn't work if someone takes the work of a team that is out of contact and inactive and improves it, because then even if some people approve it, everyone who supported the original team will be against it and will do their best to hinder it.

As for my next review of this emulator... don't expect one. I don't take pleasure in looking at individual cadavers more than once in my life.

With this review I have officially made my first productive post! Even though this is my second post, the first was simply my introductory statement and therefore I do not view it as either productive or counter-productive. I hope to hear more opinions, suggestions and reviews from the rest of you, my fellow forum members.

the reason why it has many plugins is because its outdated.. people who made the plugins are those who kind enough to do so

if you know how to tweak desmume you'ld be able to run pokemon games at 99% speed in comparison to a real ds
graphically NO$, is on a big disadvantage as it does not have 3d edge marking support that's why hackers made a code to disable it
it also lack certain load binaries that is why hackers also made a corresponding code for it

Quote originally posted by Distance:

no$GBA seems to be more up-to-date then Desmume...
Desmume is also slow... and is a kinda wreckless Emulator.
No$GBA has only one con about it - Size.
but no$zoomer would help you out there, so win win.
No$Gba wins - IMO

Desmume was never slow in running pokemon games. and FYI No$ was last updated in 2008 by Martin Korth(the creator). Desmume is updated almost every week with Stable releases (0.9.5,0.9.6,0.9.7). it has SVN's or better known as sub-revisions, some sub-revision even have Wi-fi GTS support
another advantage of desmume is that you dont need any plugins.

I was No$Gba user once, but I moved to DeSmuMe because it is simply a Better Emulator and In Fact THE BEST as of the time being

I will never use no$GBA to run DS games on my computer because there is a better option: Desmume. Desmume is more accurate, prettier, and well, easier to use. It emulates most games perfectly, unlike no$GBA that needs the games to be patched before it works... usually. And Desmume has better sound output. Desmume is still maintained, while no$GBA isn't. You don't really have to configure anything much per game for Desmume for optimal emulation - SoftRasterizer, synch audio and bus-level timing disabled should get you going most of the time. Not to mention the features out-of-the-box!

Most PCs that are out these days should be able to run Desmume at an acceptable speed. (100% speed with frameskip 1).

__________________

Hey, it's Twiggy here. Or Twiggy, if you prefer. I like Servine and Noivern a lot. I'm paired with Kip. I like Katy Perry. I want a Chespin plushie. Also, I'm a total PC geek.

I will never use no$GBA to run DS games on my computer because there is a better option: Desmume. Desmume is more accurate, prettier, and well, easier to use. It emulates most games perfectly, unlike no$GBA that needs the games to be patched before it works... usually. And Desmume has better sound output. Desmume is still maintained, while no$GBA isn't. You don't really have to configure anything much per game for Desmume for optimal emulation - SoftRasterizer, synch audio and bus-level timing disabled should get you going most of the time. Not to mention the features out-of-the-box!

Most PCs that are out these days should be able to run Desmume at an acceptable speed. (100% speed with frameskip 1).

There are different better options for different people. And it all comes down to something called preference. That's the reason why I will never use Desmume to run DS games on my computer because I prefer my own better option, which is NO$GBA.

I feel like No$GBA is getting obsolete... DeSmuME gets updated every now and then and its much more accurate than No$GBA. But if your computer is slow, then DeSmuME will lag a lot. Also, sprites in No$GBA don't have alpha blend. Basically, No$GBA sacrifices accuracy for speed.

its not piracy. as long as you own the game its perfectly legal. i use emulators because my ds is in poor repair and with emulators you can also play a variety of hacks, games that you can't find in cartridge form.

anyway back on topic personally prefer desmume for the pure reason that its nicer to look at. i've not ran into any problems and i can play pokemon white with practically no slowdown. i've even found it can handle more complex games like lego star wars 3 but then it lags a bit more.

I'm always using DeSmuME, because it's more up to date than what No$GBA is, No$GBA is outdated and has been discontinued as of 2008. DeSmuME has already passed the boundries of No$GBA since 2009. I've heard some rumors that DeSmuME 0.9.7 has fixed the issue with HeartGold and SoulSilver slowing down and freezing, now that shows... Anti-Piracy thingy really is just a code that an Emulator or Flashcard hasn't gotten to read properly yet (like the EXP problem in Black/White). I'm sure Nintendo only updates to use codings that haven't been used yet on a DS.

Quote originally posted by Pokemon Master Derrville:

dESMUME seems to have better graphics and way better sound but the game play is so slow.. I get trying to create the best compatibility out there but whats the point?

The most important part of any game rather its store bought or not is the abiity to PLAY THE GAME. Des works good on some games but I prefer No$zoomer/GBA for its speed.

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